Thursday, May 6, 2010

Hello again reading audience--(all two of you ;)Had a great day in the city (San Francisco) on Monday. I monkeyed around with the GPS and plugged in a bunch of Guy Fieri's recommendations for future restaurants to try in the Bay Area. We tried to go to one of them for breakfast.....http://www.bubbas-diner.net/ in San Anselmo, but unfortunately, they appear to be closed on Mondays. Bummer! So, we picked another place on the the GPS, and it turned out great. Easy Street Cafe in San Anselmo. I remembered that I'd been there a few times before when I was living in San Rafael. It was very good, although a touch pricey. They opened up one of the walls, so it was like dining outside. We overheard the waitress say there was only about two weeks in the year that they could do that because of the weather and temperature. It was so nice!

Stop #2 was the Anchor Steam Brewery. We thought it would be fun to get a tour. We pulled up and were amazed at the overwhelming yeasty smell hanging heavy in the air. We climbed a couple flights of stairs and it spit us out into this office. I was thinking to myself that this didn't seem right, but one of the ladies asked us if she could help us. Scott said we wanted to get a tour and she asked us our names. Apparently, you can't just drop in...you have to get a reservation. They're booked until July. Too bad they don't make that more apparent on their website! Bummer #2. That's ok...we'll be back.

Next, we headed to Chinatown. I was excited to do this with Scott! He's so much fun to explore with, and he helps me be bold about trying new things. We seemed to go down the street that is mostly grocery and dim sum...bakeries. Pretty cool stuff....some pretty gnarly looking things too. Are there really people out there who pay $800+ for a lb of dried seafood? Have you smelled dried seafood? Yuckatoowie :P This one alley-like place was filled with these huge tanks of various fish, turtles, frogs...and cages and cages of birds piled up on top of each other. Smelly...blucko! PETA would not have been happy! Bought some rice crackers just because the packaging said "want want rice crackers" ( I love engrish, so I HAD to...it was necessary!). We also bought some goofy trinkets for Heather and Chris. Next time, we're going to eat there because the dim sum looked great...but our tummys were still full of breakfast. Oh...and we both towered over the locals...lol...

We found a Starbucks to rest in for a bit in Union Square, then went to Japantown. We went into a section Scott had not shown me before. Had some great shops in there. One was called Daiso. Apparently, this is like a Japanese version of a dollar store. I went nuts in there! And again...had to buy everything that was misspelled or goofy because I love random, and that's how I roll. They had installed these nice fountains and filled them with Koi fish, so we got a couple peach crepes and sat and watched the fishies. Scott kept swirling the water with his finger, so I reminded him that they pee in that water...then he had to go and say that all the water we drink was once someone's pee...serves me right! :P but dude....tmi...

On the way out of the city, we stopped by the Palace of Fine Arts and walked around a bit. Watched this mean swan chase the little baby ducks. Must have cheesed it off or something...? Then we went to Fort Point, which was closed, but we got some great shots of the setting sun streaming through the Golden Gate Bridge. We watched the sun set at the Marin Headlands, which was beautiful...